#[ ♡ ] ── * the flores family. / 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘦.

[meatriarch]

okay but i do just imagine that the flores' liked to camp yes but also liked to have picnics when the girls' were little and ramon was still in the picture and when he left there was a gap of time where they stopped bc that was such a Family Thing for them to do, as was going out camping hiking etc, and him not being there anymore made it for a time lose its spark.

but once maria & ana are in hs & ms, when carmen felt good enough to, maria and ana would put together a basket of goodies and make up fresh juice or lemonade and they'd go with mama out to some pretty wildflower fields or parks reserves etc around uvalde so she could get some fresh air and so they can just enjoy the quiet and peace and each other and though the first time was probably far more quiet and a little bit tense with the absence of ramon, it was a little step forward for the three of them and they started slowly doing them more and more, again, together. sometimes with raph when he'd be around.

but maria continuing that little tradition and expanding it to include her little found family of her friends up in austin. in the routes across the board when she has children of her own, with her partner(s). for little dates. but with her own childrens especially just... the thought of, im happy and relieved i get to watch these memories form for you but also that me and papa and dad are able to give that to you together and not fractured like my father did -

just taking a trail of memories that grew sour and turning them sweet again from the love of those you adore, yknow?

[meatriarch]

sometimes i think about the flores home back in uvalde, and sometimes i remember the porch light in haunting of hill house ( 'when i flash it twice, its time to come home' ). and how that translate to both carmen & ana both during the searches for maria, and post-house.

how carmen probably had a similar rule for maria & ana growing up - if the light flickers on and off, its time to come home. but also a "rule", so to speak, that she would tell them always : that light is always on for you. no matter where you may go, no matter who you may be with. no matter who you grow into. that light will come on every single night for you. and if you find yourselves lost, out there, in the dark - remember to look for our porch light, and come back home. it will always beckon you home.

how carmen kept that light on for days and weeks and months and years - even after "burying" maria. that light stayed on, every single night, just in case her little girl finally did come back home. how ana ensured that it stayed on back home when carmen grew weaker over time, and how during her time in austin and newt while she joined maria's friends in looking for her, she turned on the light outside maria's apartment door, too - so she had two homes she could go back to. and how, even after carmen eventually passes from her illness, ana continues to leave that porch light on outside. for maria. for mama.

and then how maria, in most of her verses but especially in those where she has a family of her own, does the same. her children know to come inside when the porch light starts to flicker. and they know that so long as that light is on every single night, even when they had grown and moved on into their own lives and families, they are always welcomed back home, too.

[meatriarch]

thinking about maria & ana's thoughts on their father + the broadcasts, him finally showing face around again only when one of his daughters' have literally gone missing.

how pre-house, maria was always open to the idea of him returning to their lives, in some manner. for visits, to keep that promise - literally anything, pre-house she would have been so much more forgiving, in spite of the hurt he caused, in spite of how many times she had kept up hope to a younger ana and herself that he was going to keep that promise, that he was going to call, that he would show up to their birthdays, to holidays. and even when she had to bite down on lip to stop herself from crying every single time he never showed, never called, she had still turned to ana with a smile and tried to paint him in positive light.

ana, on the other end, saw through the smiles, saw through the optimism, and she hated how hurt maria was. and she hated how hurt their mom was. she remembers hearing them both, on opposite ends of the house, crying in their rooms. she remembers watching maria sit on the couch beside the landline, eagerly waiting time and time again for a call they all knew wasn't going to come through. how every time it didnt, maria would look to her, smiling, and make up excuse for him forgetting they existed. and ana knows she always meant well, and she doesnt blame her for it - but it upsets her, still, how hopeful maria was that he'd ever keep that promise.

after maria goes missing, gets taken, ana is frankly stunned when ramon appears on their doorstep. and she's angry. she realizes their mom is the one who made sure he found out what was going on, that she insisted on him coming to try and help. ana does not trust him, and she lets him know so in no uncertain terms how unwanted he is to be there - but frankly, they need the extra eyes and ears and hands to look for her sister, and that's all he better be there to do.

its very tense with them under the same roof again, and when ana and carmen ( mama flores ) are asked by the sheriffs to put out statements to be broadcast out, ana's frustration only grows when she realizes that ramon has been asked to do the same; angered at him talking about his daughter, as if he had any right to claim to be a father to them anymore, to claim he misses her, that he wants her home safely. she bites back vitriol then - but she lets him know, later that night before taking off to his motel to sleep, that he lost that privilege long ago, when he walked out on them in favor of his girlfriend.

in maria's case, down in her cell below johnny's shack, being made to listen to the search broadcasts daily - nightly routine, almost ritualistic - its so strange, so unnerving, listening to people speak of you in terms of your fate being unknown;

is she alive? is she dead? did she just skip town? what truly happened to maria flores?

to then one night, after hearing unfamiliar voices speak her name, speculate on her whereabouts, go on and on and on about how theres been no leads, no clear evidence, no signs of struggle or foul play - phrases that earn the damned radio a tearful glare from her; they've no idea what happened that evening;

to then hear three. distinct, etched into memory.

of her mother, who could barely speak without choking on words, on sobs. begging, pleading, for her little girl to be brought home safe, alive, to please let her go, let her come back to us, before devolving past the static into a sobbing mess.

of ana, whose voice trembled - both in anger, and in effort to not cry as well - who demanded people to come forward with anything, that surely someone must have seen something, heard something, know something. that her sister doesnt deserve whatever has happened, that she was good and kind and sweet, and to whoever may have her, to let her come home, safe and alive. she bites tongue not to call them a coward for going after her sister.

and then, theres the third. unexpected. stirs a bitterness in maria, huddled close to wall on the ground of the cell. when ramon's voice comes through the static, theres an anger that bubbles in her, exasperation, hurt.

it took me going missing for you to show up again?

his voice muddies between the static, between the sounds of wood being carved into, and vision blurs with tears, biting hard down on lip, on inside of cheeks, as his voice drones on, and on, and on...

until she cant stand the sound. until she lets out a sob. until she begs johnny, watching silently beside the radio, to just turn the fucking thing off-

[meatriarch]

okay odd kinda tangent ?? im about to go on re: the Grief of a Mother so like tossing it under a readmore for obvious reasons

( cw for grief loss death etc type talk so ignore if necessary! )

but just small Disclaimer that i am Not a parent and so my thoughts on this comes purely secondhand for virginia & mama flores but anyways,

the thing with loss is it manifests and changes and twists so varying across every individual person it touches. in some people it can fester and grow bitter and harsh, it grows teeth and it gnaws on them and rips them apart piece by piece, chunk by chunk, and when it manifests in that way its so very difficult to find a way to work through it. in some people it manifests in scooping out every little bit of them slowly until theres a hollow left between skin and bone. in others it drives them forward, pushes them to the future rather than dwelling on the past. it propels them into living life to the fullest in their loved ones' place, or pulls them to doing hobbies or going places or thinking differently than they did before that piece of their heart was ripped away. its all different in how it manifests.

a mother's grief is something so profound in so many ways because its not only losing a loved one but its quite literally losing someone who was once literally one with you for a time. and that time is so minuscule in comparison to the remainder of ones life.

" its unfair. its so terribly unfair that you, as a mother, end up outliving your own child. "

repeated sentiment.

mothers' grief manifests in carmen flores like shes' been torn open and her heart ripped out from her in the cruelest and most horrible of ways. her daughters are her life, her soul, her heart, and knowing that maria was taken from her, that she was stripped away from living out her life after all the turmoil they went through, all the responsibility she had to take on that took so much living from her - it completely crushes her. theres a guilt that never eases up that she caused her daughter so much pain, so much unnecessary suffering, so much back-burner plans and time with friends and good memories and she will never forgive herself. carmen becomes a shell of herself post-house. even though she tries her best to still be present and loving and attentive to ana, there's simply clearly a gaping, eternally bleeding wound in her chest that can never be sealed, never tended to, never healed. in cases where she loses ana, too? the grief is unbearable. and she follows after her daughters. her health deteriorates rapidly.

mothers' grief for virginia comes more melancholic and steeled, more subdued and harshly swallowed down. she represses alot of her grief. tries to keep forward, level-headed. of course early on when jesse went missing, emotions were higher and harder to pin down and keep under wraps. it was frustration after frustration, dead-end after dead-end. and there was loneliness in it all. with no support for anywhere. with red being overseas. with family at all other corners of the country. virginia, when talking about texas verses, leaves that house with that understanding that she will never fully get closure for what happened to jesse, while simultaneously, knowing - or assuming - what his fate actually had been. grief, for her, is opening the front door to her home and all the lights are still off. theres a stagnant chill in the air, because its gone so long without windows creating cross-breezes throughout its rooms. its the coldness of a folded flag sealed away atop of the mantle in what should be a family room, though that now hosts only a single soul in it. grief is only having known how to make meals for four - one extra to share among her favorite boys' and their family dog - and having to finalize every recipe to fit a single mouth, excluding bites for the pup. grief, for virginia, is desperately trying to keep straight-faced while you talk into the empty air hoping for a familiar voice to answer but getting suffocating silence in return.

mothers' grief is facing unrealistic pressure and guilt and anger in oneself for not protecting your baby. because that is what they always see them as - their babies. carmen sees her little maria, as a wobbly toddler making her way down stone paths into the arms of her abuela and abuelo. virginia sees the rounded, rosied, chubby cheeks of her only boy, made all the more fuller by the toothless grin spread across his face as his dad makes him heartily laugh with the silliest of methods.

and its the pain that comes with it of knowing just how distant those memories are. and that those little faces grew up, and the last time they saw those smiles on their faces they never could have imagined it being the very last time they ever would.

its the guilt of wondering if i told them not to go, would they have stayed?

for carmen, if she had told maria not to go on that trip, alone, at all - would her beautiful girl still be here? if virginia told jesse not to go to out that summer or that break, however that panned out, would he instead have gone back home instead?

its the what-ifs, the guilt-ridden voices in the back of the head that eat away them. answers to questions they will never get. and instead of seeing their kids' smiling, warm, beautiful faces again - they both bury empty caskets, and visit empty graves, and pretend that their kid is down below their feet. because that makes it easier than wondering if they are still out there, somewhere, alive - hurt - and crying out for their mothers.

[meatriarch]

thinking about maria & ana's thoughts on ramon flores ( their father ) + the broadcasts, him finally showing face around again only when one of his daughters' have literally gone missing.

how pre-house, maria was always open to the idea of him returning to their lives, in some manner. for visits, to keep that promise - literally anything, pre-house she would have been so much more forgiving, in spite of the hurt he caused, in spite of how many times she had kept up hope to a younger ana and herself that he was going to keep that promise, that he was going to call, that he would show up to their birthdays, to holidays. and even when she had to bite down on lip to stop herself from crying every single time he never showed, never called, she had still turned to ana with a smile and tried to paint him in positive light.

ana, on the other end, saw through the smiles, saw through the optimism, and she hated how hurt maria was. and she hated how hurt their mama was. she remembers hearing them both, on opposite ends of the house, crying in their rooms. she remembers watching maria sit on the couch beside the landline, eagerly waiting time and time again for a call they all knew wasn't going to come through. how every time it didnt, maria would look to her, smiling, and make up reason for him forgetting they existed. and ana knows she always meant well, and she doesnt blame her for it - but it upsets her, still, how hopeful maria was that he'd ever keep that promise.

after maria goes missing, gets taken, ana is frankly stunned when ramon appears on their doorstep. and she's angry. she realizes their mom is the one who made sure he found out what was going on, that she insisted on him coming to try and help. ana does not trust him, and she lets him know so in no uncertain terms how unwanted he is to be there - but frankly, they need the extra eyes and ears and hands to look for her sister, and that's all he better be there to do.

its very tense with them under the same roof again, and when ana and carmen ( mama flores ) are asked by the sheriffs to put out statements to be broadcast out, ana's frustration only grows when she realizes that ramon has been asked to do the same; angered at him talking about "his daughter", as if he had any right to claim to be a father to them anymore, to claim he misses her, that he wants her home safely. she bites back vitriol then - but she lets him know, later that night before taking off to his motel to sleep, that he lost that privilege long ago, when he walked out on them.

in maria's case, down in her cell below johnny's shack, being made to listen to the search broadcasts daily - nightly routine, almost ritualistic - its so strange, so unnerving, listening to people speak of you in terms of your fate being unknown;

is she alive? is she dead? did she just skip town? what truly happened to maria flores?

to then one night, after hearing unfamiliar voices speak her name, speculate on her whereabouts, go on and on and on about how theres been no leads, no clear evidence, no signs of struggle or foul play - phrases that earn the damned radio a tearful glare from her;

( they've no idea what happened that evening she was taken- )

to then hear three. distinct, etched into memory.

of her mother, who could barely speak without choking on words, on sobs. begging, pleading, for her little girl to be brought home safe, alive, to please let her go, let her come back to us, before devolving past the static into a sobbing mess.

of ana, whose voice trembled - both in anger, and in effort to not cry as well - who demanded people to come forward with anything, that surely someone must have seen something, heard something, know something. that her sister doesnt deserve whatever has happened, that she was good and kind and sweet, and to whoever may have her, to let her come home, safe and alive.

she bites tongue not to call them A COWARD for going after her sister.

and then, theres the third. unexpected. stirs a cold bitterness in maria, huddled close to wall on the ground of the cell. when ramon's voice comes through the static, theres an anger that bubbles in her, exasperation, hurt.

it took me GOING MISSING for you to show up again?

his voice muddies between the static, between the sound of carved wood, and vision blurs with tears, biting hard down on lip, on inside of cheeks, as his voice drones on, and on, and on . . .

until she cant stand the sound. until she lets out a sob. until she begs the man, watching silently beside the radio, to just turn the fucking thing off-

[meatriarch]

lying here smiling to myself thinking abt random shit & then tt shows a video & my mind just 90 degree turns over to, hey! when the sheriffs recover marias' missing, empty car & after going thru it they bring mama flores & ana in to verify it indeed is marias and the remaining belongings inside are hers & how seeing the car in person really hits home the fact that her babys' missing and it completely breaks mama flores and-

.